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Great Onelies in Realtime: Lisa December 17, 2008

Welcome to Great Onelies in Realtime, a spinoff of our long-running (one post!) Great Onelies in History series. Our inaugural Great Realtime Onely is: Lisa, coblogger on Onely.org!  Ok, sure, this stinks of nepotism, but to tell the truth, Lisa and I don’t know that many Onelies–at least none who met the extensive profile criteria of 1) being willing to be written about by us (chickens!!). That’s why we always solicit suggestions from you, Copious Readers. Do you have single friends who exhibit moments of great Oneliness? Do you have heroes in politics, science, the media, medicine, social work who also happen to be Onely? Let us know! 

So, here’s why Lisa is a Great Onely:

Well, she started this blog, for one thing. She wanted to speak out about the lack of pro-single (or even single-accepting) rhetoric in the media, having noticed how even items that espouse “finding yourself” and “loving yourself” often end with “so that in the end, you can find a partner.”  This perplexed her, because after being dumped by her boyfriend of six years, she had just discovered for the first time that being single was–not. . . so. . . bad. And actually, she kind of liked it.

 “Whaaaa??” she thought, when she caught herself planning her meals, trips, career, and hobbies without a man and feeling. . . fine. Was she a freak? A selfish anti-socialite? Was she. . . IN COMPLETE DENIAL? According to many people and more magazine articles and even more reality tv shows, she was all three of those things, and more. But Lisa didn’t buy into the B.S. (she was too busy buying in to her PhD). She  had several opportunities to start a new relationship for a relationship’s sake, but she declined them all in favor of being by herself for a while.   Because it felt right. Diagnosis:  Onely. 

She used to work with mentally challenged children, currently volunteers for outdoor environmental projects, has trained her dog to run an obstacle course in her apartment, is never at a loss for a date when she wants one, bakes pies and cookies, laughs a lot, is admired by her students and her professors, received stellar recognition in her MFA writing program, recently wrote an opus about the relationship between teaching, traditions, and the way we write history/ies, has friends on both U.S. coasts, has driven cross-country twice, wrote a memoir both funny and tear-jerking, gets along with people of all stripes, and throws a killer theme party (pirate with an actual boat, anyone?). 

And that’s just a sampler of why Lisa is a Great Onely in Realtime. 

Everyone, don’t forget to nominate other Great Onelies!

–CC